The persistent problem posed by prequels is the inherent need of each to justify its own existence outwit commercial appeal. It is a rare prequel that’s ever much more than the commodification of an original conceit. Lionsgate’s latest Hunger Games film, released almost a decade after the last, doesn’t quite reach that upper echelon. There’s too strong a feeling of superfluousness in this particular visit to Panem. Few have spent the last eight years yearning for a Coriolanus Snow origins story. The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is, no doubt, a handsome and well acted affair but feels long at over two and a half hours.
Marvel’s latest is…well, it’s a lot. There’s a lot to like about The Marvels but a lot more besides. That’s not to say the Nia DaCosta space epic isn’t heaps of fun. It is. Bolstered by a terrific central ensemble, The Marvels is heartfelt and funny and just the right side of zany. But it’s also a very much overblown beast and surprisingly uninvolving. What with Marvel’s ongoing determination to lather all of recent projects in computer generated excess, a failure of the plot to tether itself to anything especially material rather nulls the impact. Fans will, no doubt, find much to enjoy, to mull over and dissect. As for the more casually invested, the pleasures here are rather transitory. There’s a reason so much of Marvel’s once billion-dollar bankability now feels a distant box office memory.
David Fincher’s Fight Club only ever had one rule. It’s a well known one. Emma Seligman’s 2023 high school update doubles the number. Rule one of Bottoms’ ‘gay, untalented, and ugly’ Fight Club is straightforward enough. Listen. Always and to everything. The second is more flexible: never ever – ever! – be late. Unless, that is, you’re a smoking hot cheerleader, who may or may not be an as-yet-undiscovered lesbian. Let’s add a third. The third rule of this Fight Club is that all members must spread the word. Talk about it! Bottoms is a blisteringly funny new elementary comedy and right up there in the pantheon of genre classics.
The Film Blog 